Does participation in extra-curricular athletics have an effect on student attendance?
The need to research student participation in extra-curricular athletics and the effect it has on attendance was determined by looking at my own classes and noticing what looked like a trend in my students’ attendance rates. My site supervisor and I looked at a few areas that we felt could benefit us as a campus and we chose this particular topic because we felt that it would provide feedback as to whether or not participation increased attendance due to the “no pass, no play” policy and the fact that those students were in season and required to be at practice. As I looked at my own classes and the number of football players that were absent during the season as compared to out of the season, it seemed as if there may be some sort of discrepancy in the two semesters. More football players were absent during the spring as compared to during the fall. In looking at that information, I wondered if it was only football players or if other sports saw the same difference in numbers. This is how we determined a need for this type of research.
If my hypothesis proves to be correct, which is that attendance is effected by in season as compared to out of season athletes, then it can be beneficial for administrators to know these results to help determine if more students need to be encouraged to take part in extra-curricular activities. I also feel that we could identify the need to encourage student athlets to continue to attend class even if they were not in season because they should be role models for the rest of the campus. My vision is to utilize the data collected to better our campus attendance rates when athletes are out of season as well as determine if it would be beneficial for more students to take part in extra-curricular athletics.
In reviewing different types of literature related to whether or not participation in extra-curricular athletics has an affect on student attendance, I was able to provide various examples of previous research done by other authors and researchers. Most shows that the participation in athletics can increase students academic achievement. According to Vanessa Schley athletics promote “citizenship, sportsmanship, lifelong lessons, teamwork, self-discipline, and facilitate the physical emotional development of our nation’s youth” (Schley, 2002). The National Federation of State High School Associations believes that, “students who participate in activity programs tend to have higher grade-point averages, better attendance recores, lower dropout rates and fewer discipline problems” (NFHS, 2002). Two other authors, Mahoney and Cairns feel that participation in extra-curricular athletics will decrease the students tendency to drop out due to the fact that students that are at-risk now have an opportunity to build the “positive and voluntary connection to the educational setting” (Mahoney and Cairns, 1997). All of these authors reinforce my hypothesis that I have established for my action research project. The decision to pursue this particular topic for my project was determined as I noticed certain athletes attendance rates going down in my classroom once they were out of season. I wondered if it was strictly due to being in season or out of season and the “no pass, no play” rule in effect within the UIL. I discussed this with my site supervisor and we felt that it was a quality topic to look into and determine if my hypothesis might be correct. The benefits of knowing the effect on attendance for our school would be very beneficial.
While working on this action research project, it is important to communicate the overall vision to other staff members, parents, students, and community members. By doing so, you can inform them of the results of your research. To do this, I will present my research project to our principal and athletic director and inform them of the importance of this project and its potential results. From there, I would like to present my findings and vision to the rest of the coaching staff and teaching staff and hope they get on board with the attempt to increase student attendance. The staff and administration could then help push the community and student body to increase school attendance.
In the process of researching whether or not students involved in athletics have an effect on school attendance, we used various strategies for organizing and implementing. I did most of the leg work on this project with the assistance of our attendance clerks and assistant principal. The first thing that we did was sit down and look at twenty-five random male students and twenty-five random female students. We measured their attendance over the length of a semester and then determined whether or not they were involved in an athletic sport during that semester. By measuring our data we were able to see any correlation between students involved in-season with athletics and those that were out of season or not involved in athletics at all. We felt like it would be important to continue our research through the next couple of semesters measuring other classes of students as well to gauge a wider view of how attendance is affected by students involved in athletics.
To undertake a research project such as this, it is important to strategize, plan, and set priorities to allow the research project to go smoothly. The main priority for this project was to gather quality data measuring the affect on attendance of students involved in-season athletically as opposed to those that are out of season or not involved at all. I took the lead on this research and looked into this data for the most part by myself, utilizing a little help from our assistant principal and attendance clerks. The extent of my communication with the others was just to check in and make sure that I was researching ethically and in a timely manner. The attendance clerks also were able to provide me with some attendance data that I did not have access to throughout this project. My assistant principal and I sat down at the start of the project and discussed the parameters that we would follow. In this discussion, we realized that the scope of the research project was a bit to big and that we should specialize specifically on student athletes that were currently involved in-season as opposed to all members of extra-curricular activities. He and I were abole to come to a consensus on who we should be measuring attendance wise and measure that particular group compared to the others throughout this process.
This project will help serve the needs of many different students. By understanding the results of this research, administrators and coaches can work together to promote attendance by out of season athletes as well as encourage students that are not normally involved in athletics to begin to participate. The sense of belonging to a team and a part of the school setting coupled with the “no pass, no play” mandate by the UIL should ultimately drive up school attendance by athletes in season. Knowing these results can aid coaches to encourage their out of season athletes to be leaders and continue their attendance rates as if they were in season. Students that may not necessarily always attend school could be motivated to attend if they were apart of an athletic program. Ultimately, student achievement can not be increased if students are not present in the classroom.
Mahoney, J.L., & Cairns, R.B (1997). Do extracurricular activities protect against early school dropout? Developmental Psychology, 33(2), 241-253.
National Federation of State High School Association (2002). The case for high school activities. Retreieved July 20, 2011, from http://www.nfhs.org/content.aspx?id=3262&terms=the%20case%20for%20high%20school%20activities
Schley, Vanessa (2002). The effects of athletic participation on academic achievement and social status. The graduate school of Wisconsin-Stout, 4-27.
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